Georgia: Parliament suggests involuntary isolation as means to fight tuberculosis

The country’s lawmakers created a draft law that said if a patient refused treatment, a court order would see them quarantined to reduce the spread of the highly contagious disease

The country’s lawmakers created a draft law that said if a patient refused treatment, a court order would see them quarantined to reduce the spread of the highly contagious disease.

The Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee of the Georgian Parliament discussed the draft law, which was initiated by the Health Care and Social Issues Committee.

The draft law said TB remained the most important problem of the social healthcare as in Georgia so globally.

Each year more than 1.5 million people around the world die from tuberculosis. World Health Organisation (WHO) figures claimed in 2013, 550 000 children were infected with TB and 80,000 died.

Locally, there were 3,850 cases of TB registered in Georgia in 2014. Of this 2,807 were recent cases, said Georgian health officials.

"The index of new and all registered cases three times exceeds the average European parameters,” Georgian lawmakers said.

Additionally, in TB resistant terms the World Health Organisation placed Georgia among 28 ‘high burden’ countries.

"Involuntary isolation remedies are the last resort and are only used when all means for involvement of the patient with communicable TB in voluntary treatment are exhausted and prevention of infection seems impossible without involuntary isolation,” said Member of Parliament (MP) Giorgi Khchinashvili while introducing the draft law.

He noted the decision on involuntary isolation shall be made by the court and financed by the state.

The Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee supported the draft law and said it met international standards.

Source: Agenda.ge